Corporations Moving In On Mexican Food

January 11, 1985|By Jay Pridmore.

For decades, Chicago`s Mexican restaurants were mostly ma and pa operations in the neighborhoods. But now the big corporations have turned Mexican food into a ``concept`` and are stamping out chain restaurants that just might, someday, find a place as close to our collective hearts as the Big Mac.

Que Pasa, a chain owned by the W.R. Grace Co. conglomerate, has opened three locations in the last two months--in Morton Grove, in Buffalo Grove and in the city at Harlem and Foster--and plans five more by spring. Chicago is the test market for the company, which appears to be the most ambitious among several cranking out tortillas in Dairy Queen territory. Indeed, the Que Pasa idea is for families to dine together and cheaply. The cocktail lounge is understated and the Sonora-style Mexican food is not too hot.

The recent developments do not mean the Que Pasa folks were late in discovering the possibilities of Mexican food. Actually, Grace owns the well- established El Torito chain (122 locations nationwide, including Schaumburg and Lombard), which is slightly more upscale and more conspicuously dedicated to pumping tequila and Tecate. Que Pasa is the result of a decision to restructure another Grace chain, Jo Jo`s coffee shops, as Mexican cafes. The Grace people believe the concept--somewhere between fast food and fine dining --may be the next blockbuster in the restaurant chain business.

``They treat their restaurants like a portfolio,`` said Ron Paul, president of Technomic Consultants, a Bannockburn market research firm that studies such trends. Jo Jo`s was an ``expensive coffee shop concept that never paid off,`` he said, and the Grace people were looking at growth figures that showed Mexican restaurants paying off quite handsomely. In 1983, according to Paul, Mexican restaurant volume grew by 20.8 percent while all restaurants grew by 8.3 percent. That trend goes back approximately 10 years, so the conglomerate was reasonably certain that the Mexican dining would not be overly exotic in unexotic locations.

Other corporations have drawn the same conclusions to serve moderately priced but moderately fancy fare such as chimichangas, chiles rellenos and the new, faddish fajitas (strips of broiled meat with condiments and tortilla). Chi Chi`s, which got its start in 1976 in the most un-Mexican of places, Minneapolis, with then-owner (and ex-Packer split end) Max McGee, has seven local places, with an eighth slated for Glendale Heights in the spring. Collins Foods International recently opened in Rogers Park with an Emma`s Cantina, a fledgling chain which touts fresh food and surprisingly low prices, which is precisely what made Mexican popular to begin with. Emma`s went into an old Sizzler, another chain owned by Collins, which is considering converting more of its 13 Sizzler locations into the Mexican concept.

These can be money-making operations, says Lynn Barnard, Que Pasa`s district operator in Chicago. With prices no higher than $6.95 (and ample margaritas at $1.50), he believes he can get the high volume needed to make them profitable. He talks about a six-minute elapsed time between ordering and being served--which keeps children from pulverizing too many taco chips on the table. He also points out that Mexican food should provide good profits for the company. The Sonora-style is not only milder than other Mexican traditions, it also is a countrified cuisine that is considerably less expensive to prepare than that which features fish, steak and the kinds of ingredients that make restauranting a more expensive proposition in other settings.

SIDE DISHES:

Don Roth`s River Plaza is joining the fashion for New Orleans Cajun cuisine--starting next week with menu items like blackened red fish, shrimp etouffe (in rich seafood sauce and rice) and pasta jambalaya (which uses andouille sausage and chicken). Starters include cajun popcorn (fresh, crisp crayfish tails fried in batter) and a spiced Cajun martini. Chef Joe Decker spent two weeks working the kitchen of Paul Prudehomme at K-Paul, in New Orleans.

-- A ``Just Desserts`` weekend at the Hyatt Lincolnwood hotel will feature booths with desserts as varied as Silverland`s brownies and Swenson`s ice cream for guests at the hotel the night of Jan. 19. Various seminars also will be presented by the pastry chefs of the Hyatt hotels who will demonstrate the techniques in crepe- and souffle-making, among other secrets. A room for as many as four family members is $53 for the night, and includes admission to all activites on Saturday and Sunday.